Note: I'm so sorry! I thought I had posted this last night; I did everything but click the "publish" button. It wasn't until tonight that I realized I hadn't published it. Better late than never, right?

Well, our Advisory Board Retreat is over for another year—and it was a wonderful couple of days! We changed things up a bit—six board members instead of eight, our focus, our objectives, etc. With that in mind, we also changed the format of the retreat, doing things quite a bit differently. We involved more people from the home office and spent a lot of time focusing on our specific objectives for the board this year. The whole retreat was fabulous. . . at least I thought so, and I’m hoping our board members thought it was time well spent too.

Of course, while we changed things up a bit, there are few things that remained the same. Monday evening, board members headed to my house for a jammie party, dinner, and My Favorite Things. This year, we stopped for a quick tour of an empty Brick Canvas building, and then the driver dropped them off at a church house near our home, where they were greeted by our four oldest grandsons, dressed up in suits and new red ties. The boys presented each board member with a red rose and helped them into a horse-drawn carriage.

The carriage took them to our house (along the way some neighbors even came out and waved at them, welcoming them to Alpine), where the grandsons “magically” appeared again, helped them out of the carriage, and escorted them to the front door. Inside, Sara and I greeted them, and we sat down to a delicious meal. The boys were joined by Sidney and her friend, and they all served us dinner.

And what a dinner! Shanna made a delicious caprese salad; our good friend Mindy cooked up a wonderful pasta-and chicken dish, along with poppyseed braid bread and Caesar’s salad; and we finished off the meal with Shanna’s to-die-for carrot cupcakes. It was truly an amazing meal.

After that, we took a quick tour of the house and shared our favorite things.

Sterling is, of course, always one of my favorite things, and after Monday night, I think our board members saw a glimpse of why. He was the one who planned the entire evening, and he really went the second and third mile, paying such attention to details. The red roses, the neighbors waving a welcome, a banner at the house, a fantastic floral arrangement . . . every little thing was perfect. And he had some great help from our grandchildren, Megan (she chauffeured the kids and helped out in the kitchen), and friends; I was so proud of and grateful for all of them!

On Tuesday evening, we headed to dinner at The Roof Restaurant in downtown Salt Lake City, another time-honored Advisory Board Retreat tradition. The food there is incredible, the atmosphere is awesome, and as always, the company was delightful. I’m thrilled with this year’s board and am so excited about working closely with them in the coming year!